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  An Age of Mist

  by Mathias G. B. Colwell

  Published by

  Fire and Ice

  A Young Adult Imprint of Melange Books, LLC

  White Bear Lake, MN 55110

  www.fireandiceya.com

  and by

  Published by

  Melange Books, LLC

  White Bear Lake, MN 55110

  www.melange-books.com

  An Age of Mist, Copyright 2013

  by Mathias G. B. Colwell

  ISBN: 978-1-61235-612-9

  Names, characters, and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Published in the United States of America.

  Cover Art by Stephanie Bibb

  An Age of Mist

  Mathias G. B. Colwell

  “An Age of Mist” is set in an alternate world where the sun never shines and the land is covered in mist and fog nearly all of the time. What begins as a classic tale of another world develops into something much deeper. As we follow the protagonist, the young Santori, it becomes apparent that he faces a far more menacing element to this world than simply the absence of sunlight. It recounts Santori’s coming of age as he struggles to protect his family, and the battle for their survival against an unimaginable evil. It is a story of myth and legend becoming nightmare and the indomitable spirit of mankind to live and fight another day.

  Table of Contents

  Book Summary

  "An Age of Mist"

  The First Night

  The Second Night

  The Third Night

  About the Author

  Previews

  An Age of Mist

  “The Age of Mist: an age in which the clouds obscure the sky, and the sun is often not seen more than once during any given person’s lifetime. Thick mist and fog enshroud the land with a cool embrace. An age in which legends are ripe and wives’ tales run rampant, lent credence by the common man’s credulous nature. The Age of Mist was-in theory-preceded by the mythical Age of Fire in which the sun is purported to have shone nearly every day, until the earth eventually dried out and famine was a scourge upon all people, thus causing the Heavenly Grottos to release the mist.”

  Excerpt from

  The Chronicles of Aedonicus,

  Historian of the Present Age;

  The Age of Mist

  The First Night

  “Legends say that they come in the night,” the old man said, his voice thin and rough from its many years of use, “that they drink in the mist by the dim, half-light of the moon so as not to be seen clearly by mankind when their murky covering disappears.” He looked over at Santori.

  With his hunched shoulders, and a chest that was thin and fragile, the old man resembled something more akin to a spindly creature from one of the old wives’ tales, not a man. The old man opened his mouth again and cackled. Nearly toothless, his wheezing filled the silence of the moonlit night only partially before the sound dispersed through the quiet surrounding them. The weak echoes of his laughter finally vanished, as sound has a way of doing, during those rare moments of existence when noise is an unwelcome visitor and silence the inhospitable host.

  “Denizens of the mist they are,” he mumbled to himself now as he stared off towards the dark horizon in front of them. The sea met the night sky in a nearly indistinguishable line illuminated only by the faint sliver of light hanging in the sky. One of the moons, the White Moon, was making its single appearance of the night. The dense cloud covering rarely broke more than once or twice during each night, and then only for brief moments in which one could glimpse a window to the heavens above. The moon was hardly more than a fingernail and the fog clouding the shoreline was enough to make sight difficult. The clouds never broke by day, so the night sky was the only sky Santori had ever seen.

  The old man’s body was wracked with a spasm-like chuckle that quickly converted into a coughing fit. He had always been half crazy, or at least he had been for as long as Santori had known him, but it seemed like dark nights such as this brought him to the verge of being almost entirely mad. Santori felt a nudge in his side as the old man elbowed him in excitement. A fish was biting on the end of the old man’s line and Santori watched him haul it out of the sea, with surprising strength given his appearance, whooping with delight. Half-mad he might be, but there was no denying that Santori’s grandfather was one of the best fisherman on the isle.

  “They’ll ruin the land, they’ll drain the sky, they’ll suck your bleeding body dry,” the old man half sang, half hummed the old song to himself, as he made quick work of securing the fish in the wooden pail between the two of them. His grandfather smacked his lips subconsciously as he sang of sucking bodies dry. Santori shivered as a chill breeze tickled up his spine. He wasn’t sure if the breeze was the only thing making him shiver however. The old songs and stories scared him, and during the night it was only worse.

  The old man retreated into silence. They sat and fished for a few more hours, and were rewarded by four more fish. Santori caught one, Grandpa caught the rest. The White Moon disappeared shortly after its appearance and they were left to fish by the bluish-tinted light of the Glow Lantern Santori propped up behind them upon their arrival at the desired fishing location. Three small, glowing, blue fish swam lazy circles in the filmy glass container which hung from a wooden pole. It was about as tall as Santori. The fish emitted a hazy light that functioned as a lantern for Santori and his grandpa, much as the fish did for many others on the Isle. Oil was too precious to be used to light a lantern, so the fish were used instead. The deep abyss that lay directly out from the shore was fished by men such as Santori’s father, and the fishermen dropped weighted nets to the depths of the trench in order to haul up the peculiarly lit Glow Fish that lived near the bottom. About the length of one of his fingers, and the thickness of two, the Glow Fish filled the glass lantern with enough hazy light by which to fish and eventually follow the path home.

  The coastline was rocky and they balanced themselves on the small boulders, sitting just above the waves lapping at the feet of their clammy stone seats. Santori dangled his feet into the water and felt little Greenfin minnows bump curiously at them. It tickled a little, as they were too young a fish to bite him just yet. They were also much too small to harvest so he left them to the innocent game of discovery they played with his bare toes.

  When his eyelids grew heavy Santori dozed for a short while. He awoke to a loud snore from Grandpa, and decided four fish were enough for tonight. He shook Grandpa gently awake and helped the old man to his feet. Grandpa blinked his milky white eyes, partially blind with age, and groggily brought himself back to reality.

  “I was dreaming of a mermaid I saw once as a young man.” Grandpa grinned toothlessly at Santori. “Silver hair and silver eyes,” he trailed off, lost in recollection of the dream.

  “It was just a dream Grandpa, mermaids don’t exist,” Santori reminded him practically as he provided the old man with a shoulder on which to lean. They started up the path home, and the White Moon poked its clear, shiny face through the covering briefly once more.

  “Silver, like that moon above us, I tell you,” Grandpa mumbled, either not hearing or deciding to pay no attention to the practical reprimand from his grandson of fifteen years. Santori sighed and decided not to voice his opinion on merm
aids again. He believed in some of the tales told round the Hearth Fire late at night, but certainly all of them could not be true. As it was with many myths of the island, he’d never seen any evidence of mermaids and he decided, somewhat randomly, their existence was one of the tales he would choose to doubt rather than believe.

  The path wound steadily upward along the cliff face. The moon disappeared once more and the Glow Lantern was the only light by which to see. The pale, blue tint of the light cast before him lent a surreal look to the world. The narrow path might have been difficult to traverse for a stranger, but Santori had tread it everyday of his life from the time he was able to walk, and Grandpa was a great deal older than him. Santori’s slim, youthful frame balanced Grandpa’s aged body, and his bare feet felt the familiar worn stones and steps carved into the rocky cliff trail. The smoothness of the steps could sometimes be dangerous as the slick mist filled the air and moistened the stones, but their feet were so accustomed to it that they hardly noticed the wetness or the potential dangers that might have caused the death of a first time climber on this path.

  They reached the top of the small cliff and looked downwards. Santori could hear the muffled lapping of the waves against the shore. Because the moon was obscured by the dense and perpetual grey filling the air, and the Glow Lantern did not provide enough light to see more than a handful of yards, the waters edge beneath them was only a memory, too black to see.

  The path continued on and Santori followed it, leading his Grandpa all the way. The fog clung heavily to everything, as it always did, and even the dim light of the Glow Lantern could not illuminate much of the way ahead. Thin, stunted trees sprouted pale branches that drooped low over the path nearly touching the ground in many cases. Santori and Grandpa weaved their way through the tunnel of lichen covered willows, past the leafy, green ferns surrounding the base of the tree. Santori spied a cluster of small purple mushrooms and paused to collect them. Grandpa smiled encouragingly at him, and Santori was happy to bring something else home to contribute. The four fish that they had caught were not a meager haul, yet nor were they a bountiful harvest. The mushrooms would be welcome.

  Grandpa started to hum again, and Santori was grateful the words were indistinguishable. Grandpa had a tendency to enjoy singing the very songs which gave Santori the shakes. Songs or rhymes of the various mystical beings which legends claimed to inhabit the world. The mist swirled around his feet, seeming to have a mind of its own. It drifted in and out of the trees along the path guided by a gentle breeze. Some patches of the dense wet clouds clung to Santori and Grandpa as they walked. Santori shrugged off the urge to run and shake the chill moisture from his arms and legs. Grandpa was old and must walk slowly. His mother would be very angry with him if Grandpa fell and hurt himself because of Santori’s impatience, or his desire for warmth and a dry shirt. They continued to walk slowly.

  The breeze brushed lightly against Santori’s face, causing the few juvenile whiskers that his face boasted to sway. Scraggly was the best word to describe the facial hair, according to his older sister Maeri. She made it a point to remind him of that as often as she could. Santori had caught a glimpse of his face in a pool of water the other day, and he knew she was right. The hair was patchy and scarce, however, he wished to look like his father, who had a full, bristling beard. Santori figured if he didn’t give in to his sister’s complaints and instead waited patiently, then eventually his beard would also grow full. But as of right now, he appeared a whiskery youth-slim, boney, and pale. He was not one of the prime targets whom the town girls asked to dance at the festivals each season.

  The journey home dragged on, as they paused frequently for Grandpa to rest. Santori didn’t understand how the old man could fish so adeptly and yet still be so out of breath from walking. There was more to fishing than strength of arms it appeared, and lungs were not much of a factor. Finally, their seemingly endless trudge home came to an end, and the path carried them to the gate of his home. A short, driftwood fence was erected haphazardly in front of the house, yielding a small gate with a latch easily opened by any and all who reached it. It was built more out of principal than any real hope of keeping people in or out of the home. A few, flat stones, polished smooth by years of bare feet, lay one after another from the gate to the door. Leaving the bone-like fence behind them, Santori and Grandpa approached the house.

  Santori loved his home. It was little more than a series of three interconnecting rooms. Low to the ground and erected from all types of material, the building looked dilapidated and on the verge of collapsing. However, this was not the case, seeing as his family’s home had withstood countless storms of raging winds and frozen rain that screamed in from the densely gray-cloaked ocean. The sea was formidable and lay at the base of the cliff on which the house was built. The rooms leaked slightly and were patched with anything from Sea Grass, to mud, to tree branches. Air poured in through the various holes in the roof, but it was home.

  Asfyra was the first to greet them. “Santori!” she exclaimed gleefully as she raced towards them. Santori’s little sister collided with his leg, nearly tackling it out from under him as he tried to accomplish the tasks required of him upon his arrival home. He needed to prop the Glow Lantern in its rightful place in the corner, set down the pail of fish waiting to be cooked near the Hearth Fire, and guide Grandpa to his favored resting place. Grandpa loved the rickety, wooden rocking chair opposite the pail of fish next to the Hearth Fire and spent countless hours resting his weary body in its embrace.

  His little sister was a thorn in his side. She was an annoyance beyond all annoyances. “Uff,” he grunted as her weight almost caused him to collapse. Santori regained his balance, and attempted to accomplish the tasks with her coiled tightly around his left leg. “Shouldn’t you be asleep? Does mama know you’re awake?” He tried to frighten her into leaving him alone with the mention of their mother. His attempts at eliciting worry in his sister had no effect. When Grandpa, on his right shoulder, was finally settled down into his chair, it released half of the weight burdening Santori. As he released himself from the weight of the pail and the lantern by placing them in their respective locations, all that remained to burden him now was Asfyra.

  She grinned mischievously up at him, in no way relinquishing the deathly grip her body had constricted around his leg. Her face was dirty. She only had two visible front teeth. Ratty hair with a few broken shells and strands of Sea Flowers woven into it, and ragged clothes made her look like nothing more than one of the Sea Waifs in the old nursery tales, children of the sea and sand and water.

  Santori rolled his eyes, and Asfyra laughed. She loved to torture him.

  “Get off.” He shook his leg trying to dislodge her, as Grandpa’s snores began filling the home. It never took Grandpa long to fall asleep, and very little other than a direct attempt could wake him once he was sleeping.

  His six year old sister shook her head maddeningly at his plea, and enjoyed his weakening struggles. A thin woman came into the kitchen from the sitting room to his right. She was dressed in a plain homespun dress of light blue, the color of the inside of some shells. With a no-nonsense look on her face she set about heating up the remnants of the last meal to have been prepared in the kitchen.

  “Why is she still up?” Santori whined to his mother. He immediately regretted the tone of his voice. Seeing as he was already having difficulty convincing the women in his family that he was a man, the pitchy, cracking whine did nothing to help the matter.

  His mother looked at him for a brief moment as if contemplating whether or not to rebuke him for his complaint. It appeared she decided to forgo the rebuke so commonly reserved for Santori. “She was waiting for you, of course. What did you expect?” She shook her head and rolled her eyes briefly, her reaction to Santori almost identical to his reaction to Asfyra. “She won’t go to sleep without you here. You know that. Why must you go fishing at night instead of during the day? It makes more work for me when I must s
tay up half the night to keep her company as she waits for you to return home.”

  “It’s not my fault she won’t sleep without me.” Santori complained, “Besides,” he added defensively, “Grandpa says the fishing is best at night.”

  His mother rolled her eyes again. “Grandpa also claims that he has seen mermaids, that there are fish that can fly, that goblins inhabit the deep reaches of the forest, and that the Age of Fire existed. Do I need to say more?” She stared pointedly at him across the room.

  Santori frowned back at her stubbornly. He questioned a lot of Grandpa’s tales, but he didn’t like it when other people did that very thing. He always did it nicely, like a gentle reminder to Grandpa that his dreams weren’t always real. However, nearly everybody else made his grandpa seem to be some kind of lunatic when they pointed out his impossibly strange claims. Santori hated it when people did that. His mother did it often.

  “Well,” he lied, “we caught four and had about a million other bites. I’ve never seen so many fish biting. It was just like Grandpa said, the fishing is best at night.” He concluded his fib with a firm nod of his head. In truth he hadn’t noticed any real difference in the fishing at night in comparison to the day, but he didn’t want his mother to know that. She saw through his lie nonetheless and snorted as she rolled her eyes yet again.

  She finished heating up a bowl of vegetables, mushrooms and cabbage with a piece of fish on top. It was warm and good, and filled the hole that had formed in his stomach. While he sat and ate at the white, driftwood table, Asfyra unwound herself from his leg only to climb cumbersomely onto his lap and force him to eat around her head.